Hope's Final Soldier
by Thomas Tom Tom
Summary: Robin never explained what his hope could accomplish. Oneshot, RobRae (what else), and a story that makes me cry.


**A/N: Originally a Fear Me but I figured it was too different from the tone I was setting there, so it's a oneshot now. This is not a happy fic.**

**According to my beta: "1: lie on the floor, 2: try not to cry, 3: cry." **

**My other beta just sort of shivered. Proud of that. **

**Review!**

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**Hope's Final Soldier**

Raven came to in a cave, somewhere beneath Titans Tower, she thought.

A scrawny man in a ragged piece of sacking with a gas mask over his head and a horrible array of orange glowing syringes attached to his right hand loomed out of the darkness before her. Scarecrow.

His eyes burned with orange light and he looked down at her.

"Hello, _Raven." _he said in a cracked, dying voice. "Tell me...what are you afraid of?"

And he stabbed his syringe arm into her shoulder. Raven screamed and the world swam in orange around her. Scarecrow morphed into Trigon, who morphed into Deathstroke, who morphed into Robin being shot, who morphed back into Scarecrow again, although he was strangely malleable in her mind, almost liquid, flowing this way and that.

"Oooh, some lovely insecurities and deep-seated fears there. I will enjoy breaking _you..." _

Raven spat at him (and was pleased to see he recoiled angrily). "I don't break easily."

"Oh, but I think you do." Scarecrow said, wiping the spit off his mask. "Everyone does."

A cold and emotionless voice rang out from the shadows. "Yes, Jonathan. _Everyone." _

Raven's heart leapt (well, as much as it is possible for one's heart to leap when captured by a psychotic fear-obsessed scientist and dosed with fear-inducing toxins). _Robin. _

"What!? Titans Tower is filled with fear gas. How are you still standing?! How come it's not affecting you!?" Scarecrow span around, taking out a dart pistol which evidently fired syringes filled with fear toxin.

"Who says it's _not_?"

"Ahahaha! I knew it! What have I created? What have you _seen?"_

"Nothing I haven't seen before." Robin replied calmly, although Raven detected a tiny tremor, almost unnoticeable, in his voice.

"But now, it's time to ask yourself, Jonathan. Ask yourself: _what are __**you **__afraid of?" _

The voice stopped and seemed to consider this for some time. Scarecrow pointed his gun at the dark walls of the cave.

"What _are _you afraid of, Jonathan? Oh, that's right: you, Jonathan Crane," the voice continued sardonically, "you are deathly afraid of _bats." _

And then he stepped out. A hellish apparition, with bats flying all around him, the whites of his mask seemingly red and his normally sparkling teeth hooked into points. And he stepped forwards towards Scarecrow, and very slowly, took step after step closer and closer.

Scarecrow, the master of fear, whimpered in terror, as this nightmare in red raised his hand and sent forth a flurry of bats which flocked around Scarecrow, biting, tearing, gouging tiny bits of his exposed flesh.

He screamed. In pain; in fear. He yelled and waved his arms and wept and still the bats came on and on.

And suddenly it stopped. He was left shaking, looking petrified up at Robin, who just kicked him in the head and onto the floor where he continued to spasm uncontrollably.

Robin walked over, the bats all but gone, then bent down, bubbled into Deathstroke and then Deathstroke was injecting something into her, and then everything sank from the vibrant orange to its normal colours. Deathstroke turned from Deathstroke to the Robin who had invaded the cave, and back to her worried, angry, perfect Robin.

He untied her in seconds, and pulled the wires away.

"Are you okay, Raven? Did he do anything...t-uh." Robin stopped mid-word and Raven frowned.

"Robin? Are _you _okay? What's wrong?" she asked, keeping the tiny frantic tone in her voice suppressed.

Robin wordlessly held up an orange syringe, drained of all but a tiny dribble of liquid.

"In that syringe, there was enough toxin to break a hundred minds." Scarecrow muttered with a dark glee.

"Raven. Run. Get out of here, now." Robin urged her. "You have to leave me before the-"

Robin cut off and lifted his hands in front of his face. They were shaking.

His eyes widened in fear. His breathing became ragged, uncontrolled. His mouth hung open and he looked in abject terror at himself.

Robin crashed to his knees.

Raven heard the sounds of screaming coming from his mind. Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy, Batman, Kid Flash, Speedy, Bumblebee, Aqualad, Oracle, everyone he had ever known. Then she heard her own scream.

It mixed with Robin's own as he knelt on the cold floor and keened.

The bats circled around and around, making tortured squeaking noises as if sharing his torment.

Raven heard him muttering to himself "blood, blood, all the blood on my hands, all, all, all."

Scarecrow got up and staggered over to Robin. He coughed and drew a harsh breath.

"Not so fearless now, are we?" he laughed weakly.

A small, tormented voice came from Robin's kneeling form, slowly increasing in strength and power as it repeated over and over:

"We are the night, the left hand of the Sun, the harbinger of the Rebirth, the herald of new dawn."

He stood up onto one foot, and then the other. His fists clenched at his sides and he dragged himself to stand face to face with Scarecrow.

"We are the night, and we are Hope's final soldier."

And then Raven could feel it in him. The combined voices of every Titan, every Justice Leaguer, every Bat.

"We are the night, and we are Hope's final soldier."

He punched Scarecrow across the face, sending him spinning away into a crushed mass against the cave wall.

Robin turned to Raven, eyes begging for her to say something, _anything, _to prove she was real.

So she did the only thing she could think of to do. She kissed him.

It was only for a second, but all her relief and thanks and gratitude flowed into him and expelled the fear and doubt in his mind.

When it was over, she looked him dead in the eyes and told him:

"We are the night, and we are Hope's final soldier."


End file.
